


Pride and Joy

by RonsGirlFriday



Series: Perfectly Imperfect Percy [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Family Feels, Family Fluff, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Percy Weasley-centric, Protective Percy Weasley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:53:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21698785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RonsGirlFriday/pseuds/RonsGirlFriday
Summary: Percy Weasley has received his comeuppance, and her name is Molly.For the Wisdom Highlights Challenge at HPFT
Relationships: Audrey Weasley/Percy Weasley
Series: Perfectly Imperfect Percy [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1543966
Comments: 9
Kudos: 73





	Pride and Joy

**Author's Note:**

> _This was written for CheekyTorah-Lex's Wisdom Highlights Challenge at HPFT. The prompt was to write about a Hogwarts-era character in his or her middle age (40+) during the Next Gen. Percy is about 41 here._

Molly was on a hunger strike, and Percy was having none of it.

“That’s enough now, Molly,” he announced sternly, his face inches away from the closed bedroom door. A writing tablet affixed to the outside of the door displayed a mere three words:

****_I’M  
NOT  
HUNGRY_

“I expect you to be ready for dinner when your mother gets home. Do you understand me?”

Silence greeted him. Percy rapped one knuckle on the door out of sheer, ingrained respect, and then tried the handle.

Locked.

“Molly, open this door.”

_“No!”_

Percy blinked and started involuntarily. She had never directly controverted him. This was not a welcome change.

Face set and lips pursed, he concentrated on keeping his voice calm even while he raised it to an impressively authoritative level. Percy was not typically one for shouting, and he would not be drawn into this game he heard so much about from other parents.

On the rare occasions this voice was needed, it had always worked. Audrey could be too soft with them, but by God, they listened to Dad.

“You will open this door, or so help me, there will not be a door when I’m finished.”

A pregnant silence followed wherein he could almost hear his daughter weighing out the pros and cons inside her head.

Percy tapped one long finger against his wand at his side as he contemplated whether he was actually willing to blow a hole in a door in a house he had paid for.

Follow-through. Consistency. That’s what produced well-behaved children.

Property damage it would have to be, then.

But then he heard a _click_ at the doorknob, though the door remained shut. Releasing a small sigh through his nose to brace himself, he opened the door.

Molly was sat cross-legged on her bed, glaring pugnaciously at him through eyes surrounded by far too much dark eye makeup. He hated that particular development. Audrey had prevailed in that dispute - Molly needed to ‘express herself,’ or some such thing. But Percy would not give ground on this one.

Percy had previously made good on his promise to remove Molly from the Ravenclaw Quidditch team due to all manner of slipping - slipping marks, slipping into class late, slipping out of bed after hours. These Easter holidays were the first time he’d seen Molly since the decision was made, and it was already clear that he would not be forgiven anytime soon.

And then came the matter of The Boy.

In Percy’s understanding, the whole affair was discovered by Roxanne, who told Fred, who let it slip to Ron, who made a remark to Hermione, who mentioned it to Audrey, who brought it up to Percy with, “Now, don’t overreact…”

Her fortress having now been breached, Molly went on the offensive. “This isn’t fair!” she insisted for the fiftieth time since she came home that week.

“This is not a discussion.”

“You’re just punishing me for not having perfect marks.”

“If you had perfect O’s my decision would still be the same. You’re thirteen. You are not old enough.”

“Shall I just not _look_ at any boys for two years, then? Am I not to have any as friends?”

“What you’ll do first is watch your tone. And _that_ \- ” he pointed to a photograph on Molly’s bedside table “ - is not being friends, and I know you understand the difference.” In the photo, Molly was gathered with a group of students in Hogsmeade, her arms around a blond boy who must certainly have been a year or two older than her. Every few seconds Molly and the boy turned towards each other and kissed. Percy contained the urge to roll his eyes.

Molly must have caught whatever look flashed across her father’s face, because she hurled at him in protest, “He’s not _like_ that! He’s not _like_ other boys - ”

“He is exactly like that, they all are.”

“Oh, how would _you_ know?”

Percy was amused in spite of himself. He’d been to boarding school. He’d had a life before this. A long, _long_ time ago.

“Well, my dear, I know this may surprise you, but I used to be one.”

Molly looked absolutely disgusted but recovered quickly, unleashing her anger upon him, even as tears threatened at the corners of her eyes. “I know _exactly_ what you were like, and I’m nothing like you! I have _friends,_ okay? I have Quidditch and friends and you are _humiliating_ me! You want me to be perfect and boring. Everyone has boyfriends. _Everyone._ You want me to be the only one who’s not normal! Auntie Ginny said she was thirteen when - ”

Percy decided he and Ginny were going to have words.

“Auntie Ginny is not your parent. I am.”

“Well, I wish you weren’t.”

Percy made a small, involuntary grunt in the back of his throat as he absorbed that statement like a punch to the stomach.

“Alright,” he began dangerously, “I know you didn’t mean that, and that is the last - ”

“Yes, I do!” she burst out. “You’re awful, I can’t wait to get away from here and I hate you!”

He nearly doubled over with the impact of that one.

“Go ahead and punish me all you want, because it won’t change anything.”

Whether this was some sort of bizarre reverse psychology, Percy wasn’t sure, but it somehow succeeded, after another brief staring competition with Molly, in making him turn and leave her room. He shut the door behind him, just as Molly burst into tears inside, and Percy deflated, feeling himself shrink several feet.

He would win the war, but Molly had taken this battle.

Percy sat in his study, glasses pushed atop his forehead, pinching the bridge of his nose, fuming.

Where had this come from? This little girl who used to sit on his knee, begging him to read to her, hanging about his neck, eager to show him her perfect marks, crying for him when she first fell off her broom.

He’d been too indulgent with her, taken as he was from the very beginning with her ten perfect fingers and ten perfect toes and her thick red hair. Percy had always loathed his hair, but it was becoming on a girl - and while he would never say something so treacly and self-indulgent out loud, inwardly he loved seeing that bit of himself in her. These days she wanted to dye it brown.

In all other respects her looks took after Audrey’s sister, of all people. Pert nose, heart-shaped face, and large, heavily lidded eyes. In all, a much more expressive face than his own, and he noticed it more and more these days, with every sardonic sigh and disdainful glare. Oh, yes, he’d noticed those, though he usually let it slide at Audrey’s urging. Because _puberty._

Nothing else of her resembled him. Well, aside from her perfect marks, which had only recently begun slipping.

And the part about hating her father. That part was vexingly familiar.

The patter of feet down the hall caught his attention. “Molly?” he called out, though he knew instinctively it wasn’t her step. Another patter and then a wee brunette appeared in the doorway, her straight bobbed hair swinging about her chin.

He allowed himself a fond half-smile, returning his glasses to their normal seat atop his nose. “Hi, pumpkin.” He held out his arm to beckon her in and curled her into a hug when she trotted to him. “What are you doing?”

Lucy’s eyes were serious and full of concern. “I was going to start dinner. To help Mum.”

Except for her glasses, Lucy took after Audrey in every conceivable way, gentle in spirit and conflict-averse.

“That’s a fine idea. Shall I help you?” He made to get up, but Lucy held up two chubby hands in protest.

“I’ve got it,” she said, “and besides, I was going to listen to Billy and the Wigs while I work.”

Oh.

Billy and the Wigs was the band all the young girls were obsessed with this past year, and every time Percy was forced to listen to their music he felt his brain would fall out of his ears.

He knew Lucy only said this to spare him having to do any work, but he decided to allow her this moment of nurturing.

“Suppose I’d better stay in here, then.”

Lucy padded off towards the kitchen, and perhaps fifteen minutes later Percy heard the _whoosh_ of flames in the fireplace.

“My darling!” he heard his wife exclaim to Lucy. “How thoughtful of you. Where’s Dad and Molly?” Lucy gave a reply Percy could not make out, and Audrey breathed out a knowing “Oh.”

Ascending the stairs, Audrey called out to Molly, but Percy could not hear anything else that may have been said. Then Audrey came down to his study and found him there, leant back in his chair, pondering his steepled fingertips as though memorizing some information contained there. She placed one hand on her hip and cocked her head in query. Percy returned her look with a chagrined one of his own over the top of his glasses.

“What have I missed?”

“Oh, nothing too exciting,” he remarked blithely. “Molly hates me, I suppose that’s interesting.”

“She doesn’t hate you.”

“I was there,” he returned with an ironic smile.

“She doesn’t hate you.”

Percy resumed his contemplation of his fingertips.

When Audrey called Molly down for dinner, Percy began to brace himself for round two and headed for the stairs, only to be surprised to see Molly, sniffling sullenly to herself, exit her room and descend the staircase. Without a word to anyone, she sat in her usual spot at the table, scooting her chair closer to her mother’s end than her father’s. Percy caught Audrey’s eye and, taking his cue from his wife’s slight lift of her eyebrows, allowed himself to be satisfied with this development for now.

Molly’s hunger strike had given way to a vow of silence, and she ate wordlessly and fled back to her room as soon as her father stood, signalling the end of dinner. Percy was almost impressed when she managed to keep this up for three more days; Molly had never been known for her reticence.

On the third day, after dinner, Percy settled himself into the armchair in his study with a book. Audrey was in the bathroom going through her nighttime rituals (Percy had learnt not to ask), and the girls were upstairs in their rooms, Lucy singing off-key to Billy and the Wigs, and Molly stomping around pointedly. Halfway through chapter three, the stomping grew steadily closer, until Percy spied in his periphery a small, malevolent figure in his doorway.

Molly’s face was beet red, her shoulders and chest heaving rapidly with uneven sobs. Her dark eye makeup mixed with her tears to form little murky pools underneath her eyes. From her right hand dangled a letter.

“You’ve got what you wanted,” she accused. “He’s broken up with me anyway. Are you happy now?” With that, her face practically collapsed upon itself as she bawled in the spectacular way only a first heartbreak can provoke.

Yes, even Percy knew how that felt.

He set aside his book and held out a hand. “Come here, my sunshine,” he said, using his oldest pet name for her, although at this moment she looked more like a raincloud than anything else.

Molly refused at first, blubbering incoherently, but Percy merely held out his hand and waited. At last, Molly let the parchment fall from her fingers and dragged her feet across the floor towards him, putting her hand in his, still mumbling miserably between sobs. He gathered her up onto his lap, where she clutched fistfuls of his shirt and buried her face in his chest. Dark globs of makeup stained his collared shirt, and he allowed himself to cringe momentarily when he knew she wasn’t looking, but he said nothing.

“You can say it!” she wailed pitifully, and Percy managed to be impressed that he and Audrey could produce something with this level of emotion. “That this is what I get for not listening to you. I know that’s what you’re going to say!”

Percy would never have dreamt of it.

It ought not be presumed that Percy’s response was the result of some innate understanding of the tribulations of teenaged girls, nor a well-developed emotional intelligence. Percy was entirely out of his depth. But he knew there were times when a lecture would be pointless, even cruel. And as his daughter fell to pieces in his arms, he regretted that he could not mend a broken heart the way he could a skinned knee or dislocated elbow or any other flying injuries she had ever suffered.

He may have been perfectly in the right, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed it.

Molly’s breathing eventually steadied and her fists relaxed. Percy placed his hand over her small one and kissed her warm forehead. When Audrey peeked into the room, Percy was reading from a book suspended in midair in front of him, his arms around Molly, stroking her hair. Molly had exhausted herself nearly to the point of sleep, her head tucked under his chin. Spying Audrey, Percy plucked at his shirt to highlight the dark stain there, accompanying this gesture with a resigned smile.

His daughter’s words still rang in his ears and he was sure that for the rest of his life he would never forget how they sounded. But he also recalled a time when he was twenty-one, having committed the worst offenses of his life, for which he never expected forgiveness from anyone. He’d cried in his mother’s arms, saturating her blouse with tears and snot - so dignified - and he’d hugged his father for so long he thought they might need a spell to separate them.

Percy would have held Molly in that chair for the rest of his natural life if she’d let him.

She might color her hair whatever wretched shades she wanted; could hide her incomparable face underneath loads of makeup. She still had ten marvelous fingers, ten splendid toes.

And it was perfectly plain, to anyone who cared to see, that she was Percy Weasley’s daughter, through and through.


End file.
